From AaronH: Mordor (and Isengard) Orcs from GW (125 points)

 This week's entry is twenty five GW Mordor orcs. They are a combination of plastic and metal and include two of the ooooold metal orc models from when the line was first started, now re-purposed as captains.

First up, painted as Isengard orcs.

In the movies Saruman has normal orcs in his army as well. They do the grunt work around Isengard, hatching new Uruk Hai, cutting down trees, a little light gardening. Since you can take orcs in the list (at least in the old rules) I am painting up some of my orcs as Isengard. For this lot it's mostly the flag and the shield on the captain, though the two archers with helmets have an S rune on them.

You can see the shield symbol on the captain. This is how they are described in the book, a black circle with a white hand in it.

The captain is one of the two old metal sculpts. They are soooooo much better than these crappy plastics.

This guy is just prime LotR sculpting from back in the day.

Next up are the "heroes" for the Mordor orcs. These are three metals and a plastic Gothmog.

The third guy from the left is another ancient metal orc re-purposed as a captain.

The three metals are some of my favorite GW sculpts. They are just clean, interesting and well detailed. Gothmog is a great example of the current plastic state of the art; very good considering the medium.

I don't usually run the drummer or the whip dude, but you never know what the new rules will lead to.

The last group is 13 archers. These guys are the same as the Isengard ones above, there are only two poses, and they're really the same dolly with a different head. The main difference is that my Isengard army, painted years ago, has brown bases with grass on them and Mordor have grey bases with a single brown tuft.

These are pretty good for plastics of this stage of LotR development, but still not great.

The archers will fill in Mordor, Minas Morgul and Moranon lists and will provide the fire support for the Moranon orcs I painted last year.

These will also serve in other fantasy games like D&D, Pathfinder, Five Leagues from the Borderlands, Rangers of Shadowdeep and Oathmark.

This group means I have enough painted orcs for almost all of my needs, barring Oathmark. So, naturally, I'll be painting up a bunch more of the non-archer ones soon. 

This entry is 25 28mm orcs x 5pts each = 125 points.

Sylvain: I share your passion for metal miniatures. With your paint brush, you flawlessly included these into your plastic minis. When your models are grouped together, the light brown color you chose suggest a horde of rodents. Your heroes are characterful and bring a nice touch to the whole band. Excellent production!

 

 

From AaronH - 16 Morranon Orcs (80 pts)

 This  week is more of the same, though less of it. I completed 16 Morannon Orcs with sword and shield. Actually it's 12 of those, two captains, a shaman and a banner. The Star Wars Legion stuff is still working its way across the table, but hopefully it will be ready for next week.

The rank and file are shades of brown but I did the Captains with red to help them stand out.

These are more of the GW plastics. They're fine for what they are. There's some nice variety in the sculpts and they look good at table top distance.

The four metal models have noticeably crisper detail than the plastics.

These guys will be the front rank of the orcish shield wall, with the spears from last week supporting them from behind.

This Shaman is, I think, my favorite of all of the GW LotR shamans. The details really scream out his nefarious magic and the sculpting is very clean and crisp.

This captain is pretty undistinguished. He really needed the red clothes to stand out from the rank and file.

I very cleverly managed to pretty much fail to capture that he is wearing a looted Gondor breastplate. You can just make it out in this picture.

This next captain is also not really a standout model. He also got the color treatment to make him more obvious.

The amor for these orcs is very distinctive and makes the Morranon's stand out from bog standard orc lads.

The banner is a pretty nice sculpt. I really like the way he's just sort of standing there watching the battle go on around him. I put it down to the fact that he probably can't seen anything out of his helmet.

The normal orcs off the sprue are varied enough to make an interesting group on the tabletop.

I, again, just grabbed multiples of each, two or three of a pose, and got them painted up. Most warbands for captains are 12 models so 12 spears and 12 swords.

This guy looks like Steve Bannon to me.

This mace is a nice change of weapons, though it does stand out almost as much as a spear.

The next bits of this army will be 12 archers, though those will be standard Mordor Orcs rather than Morranons, as well as a drummer and a troll.

16 x 28mm x 5 pts each = 80 pts

Nice looking bunch here Aaron. The standard issue plastic orcs are elderly sculpts but still really good. The metal ones are excellent, especially the banner dude. I like how the one guy is sporting a looted breastplate too. Good work and 80 points for you!

Dallas

From AaronH - Heroes and Villains (89 pts)

This week's entry is two more Star Wars Legion models, a dwarf for role playing and some nasty Morannon Orcs to storm Osgiliath and Minas Tirith.

First up are Luke and C3PO. There are several versions of Luke models and two different game versions, a commander and an operative. This is the Operative Luke model.

His clothes are all black so I went with Black and dark gray with a Nuln Oil wash to give some differentiation.

Truth be told, Luke's not a great  hero for the Rebels. A lot of force users are sub-par but he hasn't really been upgraded to the level of the top tier in the last couple of years.

C3PO is a nice, clean, easy model.

C3PO is R2D2's sidekick. He can't be taken alone except in the new Ewok battleforce. He's actually pretty interesting there as a strong support character.

C3PO and R2 come in a scenario pack with the crashed escape pod. It comes with some objective, deployment and condition cards to play a themed scenario. I've never actually played any of those, which seems like shame now that I think about it.

Warhammer Dwarf Quarreler

This next model is a rank and file Dwarf crossbowdwarf from Warhammer. I painted him for our role playing campaign as one of the characters is a dwarf ranger with an arbalest.

He was quick and easy and I should probably just bang out the rest of the unit as well. These are not great models but they do the job.

I decided to add a splash of color with the fletching on the bolts. I'll carry this across the army, mostly to the bolt throwers when I get to them.

14 Morannon Orcs to bring terror to my enemies.

The last entry is 14 Morannon Orcs from the Lord of the Rings game. These are 12 plastic spear orcs and two metal heroes, Grishnakh and Guritz - the Master of Reserves (with the skull on his helmet).

Grishnakh on the left and Guritz on the right.

I've had Grishnakh for 15 years. Gurtiz is a more recent acquisition, being only eight years old.

I painted the armor with a dark metallic and then washed it to make it look rusted and un-cared for. In these images it came out more as brown but it presents better in real life. I'm having some issues with varnish since I ran out of my old Vallejo matte and the new one is more satin. Very disappointing and it makes photographing these models trickier.

Twelve spear orcs. 

The plastics come with separate shields, with one or two exceptions. This lets you get more variety in the poses but only within reason.

The shields do leave room for painting heraldry. Is it heraldry when orcs have it?

These models are the usual sort of crappy plastics from GW. They have large blobs that aren't actually any sort of thing, just plastic filler. A lot of the details are soft or imaginary. 

The numbers you see here are not representative of what comes on the sprue. I have several boxes of these and just grabbed 12.

I also have 12 sword and board on the table right now, along with a troll and some more heroes. The local gaming group is doing an Osgiliath themed narrative game at the end of the month. Rhys and I have been working on these models as well as terrain for the last six months. Sadly by the time they locked in the date, we had a prior commitment and will not be able to attend.

I think this guy is my favorite of the spears.

At the very least I'll complete the sword and board as well as the troll and 12 archers. That will give me a painted and playable Mordor army to add to the collection.

I only grabbed one of this dude. He's terrible to play with since his spear really really gets in the way on the table, instead of only partly really getting in the way like all of the others.

2 x 32mm Legion x 7 pts = 14 pts

1 x 28mm Dwarf x 5 pts = 5 pts

14 x 28mm orcs x 5 pts = 70 pts

Total =  89 pts

Nice variety in the post today Aaron, those Legion models are super and I love the shiny Threepio. We all have tons of unpainted LotR orcs and good on you for cracking on with this dozen, they look good and I like the scrawled on "heraldry" on their shields, they look really good. 89 points for you!

Dallas

From Steve K Saturday, Wolf Riders 165pts .

 

Now then, 

First up this week I have some Oathmark wolf riders, that I'm using as warg riders for my lord of the rings project. 

The first 8 are armed with melee weapons, ready to support the foot sloggers.

The next 8 are armed with bows.

I also painted up this Rohan foot character, which I'll add to a unit as a horn blower.

The whole lot together. 

16 x 28mm mounted - 120pts

1 x 28mm foot - 5pts

Total 125pts.

Cheers

Steve.

Sorry for being a little late posting these up, I only noticed after my minioning shift had ended. 

Great work on these wolf riders, the Oathmark models really fit the LotR aesthetic nicely. I think you have under-scored them though, 28mm cavalry are worth 10 points a piece.

From TeemuL: Outer Ring [Istvaan V] [Solaris] [Arda] [Caprica] [Death Star] (125 points)

Note to minions: I know it is free fire time, but I really like to have this entry to be posted on Wednesday, you'll understand. Yes, Tamsin, I know you are very efficient, but please leave this one for Wednesday. :)

After a quick visit to Vogspehere, we'll climb back to the Outer Ring, walk through the already visited Klendathu and Glorantha and arrive to...

Istvaan V, something for betrayal, howabout a Ringwraith from Middle-Earth, one of them is even named as Betrayer by Games Workshop for their excellent game Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. Once a king of men, then corrupted by power and Dark Lord, he betrayed his people (willingly or unwillingly).

Babylon 5 and Vulcan are familiar ground, so we move on to...

Solaris, which calls for something "Deception, Illusion". Ringwraiths are corporeal creatures, quite invisible, but often wearing black cloaks to give them form. When wearing the One Ring, they can be seen as they perhaps used to be on earlier days as King of Men. That is of course an illusion, because in "reality" they are invisible. We can of course speculate which is illusion and which is reality, but that could be very deceptive...

Well, we move on and arrive to...

Arda, something Tolkeinesque is asked for an I present one of the Ringwraiths in Twilight mode. Ringwraiths are creature of Middle Earth, created by Tolkien, so I suppose they fit the Tolkeinesque requirement, or at least the Fantasy.

Lots of these Ringwraiths here on the Outer Ring, we quickly depart and jump to...

Caprica, where we are not ambushed by invisible corporeal creatures, but those creatures are doomed to serve their Dark Lord indefinitely (or at least until the One Ring (not related to Outer Ring) is destroyed. Doomed to serve and be slave, they can be banished, but their spirits will stay and they will continue their grim service.

We leave the doomed one and move on to...

Death Star, sound like a home of big guy in black or bunch of recruits in white, but actually it is just hubris. I'm not a native in English, so I had to do some research on that. From wikipedia,  Hubris: describes a personality quality of extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance. 

To me, that fits most of the bad guys in literature and movies, but right now it screams Witch King of Angmar, overconfident and arrogant minion of the Sauron saying "You fool. No man can kill me. Die now." mere seconds before killed by a woman and a hobbit. Arrogant, overconfident, so hubris.

In the movies these are kind of a reversed black-and-white and I tried to do something similar, but more colourful. So I started from white, drybrushed with green, blues and black to get the strange and disturbing look, that something is not right. The colour transitions looked good, but from white to green the leap was too much. I should have started from off white, I guess, but it was too late. I decided to try to add some yellow ink to the white parts to create an effect of transition from white to yellow to green. It helped a lot, but I'm still not 100% satisfied. Of course they don't look "right", but they shouldn't look right, they are corporeal creatures, which you only see when under magical influence (the Ring), so may be they are right. I don't know. They are not exactly what I was aiming for, but at least they look different than my barrowwights (which is good, because these are not basically ghosts) and different to my Army of Dead (which is again good, because these are different kind of magic ghosts). They could be neater, I admit that, being nice metal sculpts, very powerful creatures in the game, they should look more finished, but that would mean to start all over again. I'll get a new set from the next MTO... :)

There are only 3 different sculpts, but I was able to make some variations, since parts of the crowns were separate pieces.

That is 5 metal miniatures by Games Workshop in 28mm scale, 5 points each so total of 25 points. Planet bonuses from Istvaan V, Solaris, Arda, Caprica and Death Star totals to 100 so 125 points. Add one squirrel for MESBG Army of Mordor. I could have done something else, but that would not have been very Wednesday-way to put it, right? This should see me crash my points target, too.

My personal Squirrel count: 16

• 20mm Napoleonic
• 28mm Sludge
• 28mm Pulp
• 28mm Warhammer 40000 Xenos
• 28mm General (including Gloranthan) Fantasy
• 1:300 Cruel Seas
• 6mm Epic Imperial Fists
• 28mm ADD Boardgame
• 28mm Runewars Waiqar
• 28mm Blood Bowl
• 28mm Simians
• 15mm Mid War Germans
• 28mm Age of Sigmar Sylvaneths
• 28mm Warhammer 40000 Imperium
• 28mm Warhammer Fantasy Orcs & Goblins
• 28mm Lord of the Rings Mordor

Really? Claiming five planets from five very similar figures? Really? That is stretching things somewhat - I think I can see why you wanted this held over for Wednesday, but as Greg has an emergency at his cabin you've got me minioning it after all!

It's definitely a stretch, but I think that you have justified the planets and might have got away with it apart from a slight hitch that you seem to have overlooked - to get from Istvaan V to Solaris would require a trip on Lady Sarah's Star Yacht and there's no female figure (or Yacht trip claim) in this post.

Tamsin

Edit to Update: I'd missed Curt's reply to a query on the Quadrant Map post saying that you can skip planets that you've already visited. Points for the other four planets have now been added.